Site Rebuild
I keep getting behind and not getting the site rebuild scheduled, but I plan to have it taken care of the first of the month. Consider it your Christmas gift! The site is now running a surplus from the blogads and google ads, so DO NOT DONATE A PENNY. We actually are self-sufficient now.
I know there have been a number of problems with text scrolling across the screen and other glitches, so rather than just having you put it in the comments here, I have created an email address for you to mail your specific problems and screenshots. Please put a brief description in the title of the email, as well as a description of your problem and a screenshot (if you have one) in the text. Your system and browser info are always helpful, too. Please send that to:
bjrebuild@gmail.com
Off the top of my head, some things that need to be fixed are adding emails for all the front page posters, and dealing with the disaster that is our blog links. Anything else you can think of that is not a browser specific problem (that you should be emailing to the address above!), please put it in the comments.
Mobile version of the site!
November 9th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
two weeks
November 9th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
@General Stuck: Until the rebuild crashes? You’re optimistic.
November 9th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
I would like the front pagers posed in a diorama.
It can just be in a shoe box. I’m not picky about my technology.
And yes, with their pets.
November 9th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
WordPress.
That is all.
November 9th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
The only time I don’t have probs with your site is when I turn da Java off.
I’m not a squid, so I can’t tell you why it does that exactly also.
November 9th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Oh sweet mother of mercy, it’s only a matter of time before this thing becomes sentient and kills us all!
November 9th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
@DougJ:
WANT
November 9th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
more pornn
November 9th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
So does this mean we are going to be crashing every other day again. I depend on this site for my breaking news alerts so I hope all goes smoothly.
November 9th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
I WANT MY UNICORN DAMMIT
November 9th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
I don’t know, with adblock and FF, I don’t have any serious problems with BJ these days. It works as fast as it ever has, and I have even learned to spell beter. Like soshulism, puzzy, and shooos. It’s all in your head anyways.
November 9th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
I live in Southern California, thirty miles East of L.A. I’d drive a hundred miles to get together and raise a glass with some other Juicers. Would anyone else support a once-a-month “Let’s Get Together” thread?
November 9th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
The site always works fine for me. Maybe because I’m on a MAC.
(let the flame wars commence!!)
November 9th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
@fourlegsgood:
Did you post at Digby’s site under the same nom de blog? I was a fairly regular commenter there a couple of years ago and then I chose not to be.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
@fourlegsgood: I read it in the browser built into emacs.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
IT’S ALIVE!
November 9th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
@General Stuck:
Maybe we need to produce a BJ dictionary with the “proper” spelling of our most loved words :)
November 9th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
@fourlegsgood: I had all kinds of issues on IE8, so I switched to Firefox. There’s been virtually no problem ever since.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
@MikeJ:
Fuckin’ nerd. I read it in LYNX.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
@Dennis SGMM: I like this.
There are several Chicago folks here and the WI people can drive down and bring New Glarus.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
If the site is now running a surplus, it’s TIME FOR TAX CUTS.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
@Citizen_X: I can’t fight you at dawn. Maybe after coffee?
November 9th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
It would be cool (if possible, it might be too unwieldy) to have a blogroll of regular commenters. I’ve tried to bookmark or RSS different ones, but I know I’m missing some.
I solved the comments running of the page problem by finally giving into the hive mind and switching to Firefox as a main browser. (damned monopoly. that is what a monopoly is right? the libertarians have me confused.)
November 9th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
@Dennis SGMM: Why on earth would anybody fire up a separate process for a web browser when your text editor will do the job just fine?
November 9th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
@DougJ:
yes!
November 9th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
@jacy:
That’s a cool idea if it’s possible.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
fix your word filters to allow us to use soshulism’s correct spelling!
November 9th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Moar garbage posts.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
This site is self sufficient? You’re gonna have to remove one of yer headline snarks.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
@cleek: I really would be curious to see if we were overrun with boner pill spam if the word were just removed from the list. If it happens, add the word back in. It’s a change any of the front pagers could make in about two minutes.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
@Annie:
lol yep
November 9th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
I’ve asked in the distant past about the possibility of mirroring the top of page hotlinks to the preceding and following post at the bottom of each post. Barring that, a “return to top of thread” link would be nice as well.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
What the devil has happened to Cole?
We can’t look at each others’ complaints? We can’t complain about other complaints and suggestions? No joint, public, moan, groan, grump, and whine festival?
What is happening to this blog, anyway?
November 9th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
@jl: He demands a monopoly on complaint reading.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
A public option.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Bionics
November 9th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Personally I would just like to submit a comment and not have it freeze up the whole damn thing.
Also. Too. Could we please have a small bio of all the front page posters now? I know many may know who they are and why they post, but for me, it’s like they were sprung from John’s ribs and FSM breathed life into them. One moment they were not, the next John said, Let there be….Anne Laurie....and there she was.
That is all.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
@MikeJ:
Heh! I lived in the UNIX and HPUX world for a number of years. Despite that, or maybe because of it, when I built the new box a few weeks ago I loaded Win7 Ultimate 64bit (It was nearly free to me) and I love it.
Just got tired of sudo.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
@BGinCHI: I like the diorama idea. Then when we get pissed at one of the front pagers, we can punch them in the neck.
This will require some kind of expensive hologram technology, or lots of shoe boxes, but Cole said his miserable lefty blog was paying for itself, so I figure the ad revenue will cover it.
Dioramas! Or Balloon Juice hates freedom!
November 9th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
@freelancer:
Damn it, I was just about to make that joke.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
@Gravenstone:
Seconded. And a mobile version would be looooovely.
Could I talk you into just ditching the keyword filter and using Akismet to kill comment spam? It works really well, I promise.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
@jl: I think it was Billy Bragg who said that revolution was just a diorama away.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
@gnomedad: Don’t have the votes.
It’s E.D, the one conservative, against all the other posters in favor of it.
Not enough. Not nearly enough.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
It would be nice if some way, some how, the super ultra boldedness in the blockquotes was finally beat down. Having more than 5 entries in the recent posts list would be good, because the FPers often produce more than 20 posts in a day.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
@Zifnab:
You reminded me of a Sci Fi story that I read in the early Sixties. In it, the protagonist figures out a way to tie together all of the computers on earth. At the end of the story, the protagonist is about to pull the switch that enables the whole thing and he muses aloud “I wonder if there is a god?” A voice from above answers “There is now!” and a lightning bolt fuses the switch.
A case of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale to whoever can provide the name of the story and its author.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Wow, that’s great John. I can’t believe that “Someday this blog will pay for itself” is not an ironic joke anymore.
Congratulations.
.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
@JGabriel:
Seconded.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
This site needs more options for garbage collectors.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
@Dennis SGMM: I don’t know that one but I’m reminded of Colossus, the Forbin Project, which I watched recently.
Lurved that movie as a kid. Held up fairly well actually, considering.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
@Dennis SGMM:
You should connect directly to port 80 and read the raw HTML, the way God intended. These “browsers” are an abomination.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
@Dennis SGMM: Asimov’s The Last Question.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Are you contracting out your site rebuild? SOSHULIST!
November 9th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
@cleek:
This. It would also be nice to be allowed more than 3 links in a post.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
@MikeJ:
I believe the answer is: yes, we are. And that Cole already knows that from cleaning the spam filter several times a day.
.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
@Roger Moore: HTML? You’re letting the computer reassemble packets any way it wants and then present you with layer 6 info? Honestly, if you let it do more than TCP for you it’s just a crutch. You should be able to do IP in your head.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
In that case, I think you’re going to need to change or remove the “This blog will pay for itself” from the list of tag lines at the top.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Less Pittsburgh Steelers talk.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
@Annie:
Actually, flagging the “bad” words like a spell checker with suggested replacements would be cool. Or just replace them, kind of like a pie filter for spam.
Or just fix the d-a-m-n bad word checker to look for full words rather than character strings.
Nah, the spell checker thingy would be confusing and auto replacement would be nearly as maddening as the ‘guess what word got me moderated” implementation, so it’s got to be one of those. Then instead of missing all the moaning about comments that have already been released by the time I get around to reading the comments, I can read whines about how the blog changed somebody’s comment.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
@cleek:
Just use the word fascism instead. There’s no difference between the two.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
@soonergrunt:
Co-signed. The spam filter and comment editor here are both heinous abominations of bad design. Don’t try to fix them, just salt the earth and try something else. Preferably something that (for the filter) is capable of differentiating a whole word match from a substring, and (for the editor) doesn’t try to reinterpret basic HTML and formatting conventions or otherwise try to be smarter than the user.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
@Roger Moore:
Yes! Can we raise the limit to 6? That would give one link for the response link-back, and five links for providing sources and counter-examples when we argue.
Not that we ever argue here. We’re all fluffy little bunnies, as peaceful and quiet as the falling snow.
.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
@JGabriel: If he didn’t monopolize all the spam we would know that. Soçialist.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Wow. Whoda thunk that a ragtag bunch of misanthropic sociopaths bitching to each other could generate an ad revenue stream?
November 9th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Would y’all please, please, please add previous and next thread links just above the “Leave a Reply” section – and/or repeat the Recent Posts list so that it appears at the end of all comments.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
You know how there’s this big fucking “Balloon Juice” logo at the top, and how clicking it doesn’t take you back to the home page, instead forcing you to click the rotating tagline?
Personally, I’m not a fan.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
@kdaug:
Rupert Murdoch?
.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
By the way, for those of you who are comfortable with using a smidgen of HTML, there’s a way around the moderation of words like socialism. Just break them up with an empty tag.
For example:
soci
[less-than]i[greater-than]
[less-than]/i[greater-than]
alism
Except replace the bracketed bits with the less-than or greater-than symbol, and do it without the line breaks.
Edit: FYWP for stripping out the & gt ; and & lt ; substitutions. This sort of pointless bullshit is what I mean by trying to reinterpret basic HTML and formatting.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
@Catsy: Or use a capital i instead of the lower case L.
For example: sociaIism.
.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
@Sentient Puddle:
Seconded. We used to be able to click the Balloon-Juice logo to get to the front page but on the last site redesign it changed so we have to click the tagline. Not an improvement.
Do love the rotating tagline, though.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
So can we go all Alaska now and get money from you every year? Freedom!
November 9th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
@JGabriel: Point taken.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Well, you can do all the site redesign you want but in the end you know what they say: garbage in, garbage out.
Er, I mean that as a compliment, BTW.
November 9th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Firebug says:
CSS parsing errors:
Error in parsing value for ‘padding-top’. Declaration dropped.
http://balloon-juice.com/wp-co...../style.css
Line 49
Error in parsing value for ‘margin’. Declaration dropped.
http://balloon-juice.com/wp-co...../style.css
Line 348
Unknown property ‘border-bottom-right-radius’. Declaration dropped.
http://www.change.org/widget_f....._style.css
Line 54
Unknown property ‘border-bottom-left-radius’. Declaration dropped.
http://www.change.org/widget_f....._style.css
Line 60—validate your CSS, make things happy
November 9th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
@kdaug:
I’m guessing that all the political ads driven by Citizens United money have made a lot of political blogs more profitable than ever before. JC should put the surplus into a rainy day fund to keep us going until 2012.
November 9th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
@JGabriel:
My personal favorite is to spell it soci@lism, the way email spammers used to do as a way of avoiding simple spam filters.
November 9th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
@MikeJ:
Wow. I read a lot of Asimov from the Fifties on. Email me at
binhthuy71 (at) yahoo.com and I’ll arrange to pay off.
November 9th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
@Dennis SGMM: binhtuy, choi duck!
November 9th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Per-author rss feeds!
November 9th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
@stuckinred:
LOL! Sometimes, on a warm rainy night I can remember all of the words and all of the pigeon French I used to know. One that always stuck was sinh loi, minoi. V day is coming up and I don’t look forward to it.
On the other hand, Chau Duc was one place I never looked forward to. I was with the small boats and Chau Duc was just no fun.
November 9th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
@Dennis SGMM: I went in 44 years ago tomorrow, my 17th birthday. We had signal installations all over the delta and I drive ass and trash missions up and down the raids. The one I liked least was Vihn Long to Sa Dec (I liked Sa Dec once we got there). I pulled a tour in Korea before the Nam so I sometimes get my terminology mixed up.
November 9th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
@Dennis SGMM:
“Answer,” from Angels and Spaceships, by Fredric Brown (Dutton, 1954). Here is the original text: ... sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.*.
http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm
November 9th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
More Boobies!
November 9th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
I would like it if the center column didn’t totally collapse if you made the browser window smaller – it is really a pain on a 13” monitor (laptop) when you’re trying to look at other windows too.
November 9th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
@monkeyboy:
Again, wow. Now I’ll have to read both to determine the winner. Thank you! I’ll read this one too.
November 9th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
@El Tiburon:
Fine. Here ya go.
November 9th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
@stuckinred:
No worries: I have to muster most of my remaining brain cells to correctly spell Ben Xhe Moi, the nearest ville to my outfit. When Ben Xhe Moi sprouted both a Texas Bar and a Transistor Bar it became clear that we’d already lost.
November 9th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
@Dennis SGMM: Well, all that “thanks for your service” shit is just plain annoying. Welcome Home on v day. (:
November 9th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Well not to junk the thread but…
The twelve year old boy likes Doctor Who and just joined the Science Olympiad.
The nine year old girl plays the French Horn and joined the Math Club.
Nerds!
My work here is done.
Alls I’m saying is I’m a good liberal mom. FTFTBers.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
How many Arizona garbage collectors had to lose their jobs to make this a profitable website? Rapacious overlords of the internets, makin’ a buck off the working man? You betcha.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
For Festivus I want A WP formatter that doesn’t completely fail at closing tags or lose its shit over the idea that blockquotes might have more than one paragraph.
And fix the damn moderation filters. A political blog that makes me mangle the spelling of sow-shul-izum is kinda comical in a way since it sort of points out the brainlessness in how the term is thrown around (I know, I’m dissecting humor here) but the joke is wearing thin. And does mention of footwear still throw you into moderation? Is it really impossible for someone to write a filter implementation with a whitelist of specific words?
November 9th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Can the Thursday night menu post contain a Thursday night cocktail, or would that have to be separate?
It’s like “One City, One Book,” but with booze:
One Blog Community, One Bender.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
@BGinCHI: Yes, front pagers in a diorama. With their pets. Playing poker!
November 9th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Thanks John. Its been a bitch with the no right margin. I know that many others have not had the pleasure, but it seriously interrupts the ability to read comments, much less make comments
I knew that you were working on it so didnt complain as much lately, but was wondering what was happening on that—so thanks
November 9th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
@monkeyboy: Thanks for that answer. I was miffed that I didn’t remember a story by Asimov that fit the original question. I thought my memory was going there for a minute. Now I can put the worries about dementia aside for another day.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
It sure would be nice to be able to tell which posts had new comments since the last refresh and to be able to identify those comments or at least be able to tell which comment was the last one viewed.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
@stuckinred:
That’s enough. Welcome home to you and, may you forget the bad parts and remember the good ones.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
@demkat620: You rock, and so do your kids!
November 9th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
@BGinCHI:
If we’re going to have a group cocktail, can we schedule it for Friday, instead? That way those of us who work the regular work week won’t have to worry about working with hangovers.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Mobile version.
And a pony.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Fix the problem of all of the blocked words that are actually part of another word. I will probably never need to write cia-lis, but soc-ialism, that’s a mod to the filter that probably half your readers could fix.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
@Dennis SGMM: thx
November 9th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Requests? Suggestions? Shit, this is too easy:
MOAR TUNCH PLZ KTHXBAI
November 9th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
@stuckinred: In case I don’t get to it after midnight, Happy Birthday! Did I hear you say you’re coming over to see the new Cirque du Soleil show? The tents are two blocks from my office :-)
November 9th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
My only complaint, other than the blown margins in everything that is not IE, is that I sometimes don’t get the really clever titles. I mean when it’s an obscure song title, or even a line in a not obscure song, I’m just pretty lost until someone in the comment thread compliments you. ( Yea, I’m mostly talking about DougJ, here.) Can ya just state the song at the end of the article? Or maybe jump into the first comment with the answer for the folks who want to play that game? That way they can guess and feel superior before clicking on the comments button? Maybe even leave your personal favorite YouTube link there, so that those of us who wish too could get the same damned earwig?
I can’t be the only person who reads this blog who isn’t a pop culture trivia maven, can I? I know I’d really appreciate it.
Also, too, I’ve been really loving the garbage columns.I have a feeling we’re going to need more like those after Jan3. And please keep ABL and Tom Levenson after your trip. And I like EDKain too, he’s reachable and teachable, so don’t scare him off.
And whatever happened to a view from your sofa? Those cracked me up. And I love the rescue threads also.
ETA: Yea I spelled clever, cleaver, fuckin sue me.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
@SiubhanDuinne: Yep, dinner with friends at Pasta Puchinela (sp) and pot over the bridge (I hope). My office used to be in the old church at 10th and Hemphill.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
A mobile/iPhone version.
More Tunch, Lily, and Rosie pics and vids.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
This is an edited copy and paste from Sept. 1st, so some duplication of previous suggestions:
I realize John doesn’t pay his bloggers (nor himself) even cat food cash, but since you might be referring to things like block-quoting separate, multiple paragraphs, may I suggest posting a WP tutorial in the FAQ or someplace?
It would be for common problems like leaving a space by a hyphen; closing html tags, or sticking to using the comment buttons; unintentional bolding of block-quotes; block-quoting separate, multiple paragraphs; using the link button; comments going into moderation if there are more than three links (including reply links); the list of WP spam words (plus ‘shoo’ vs. ‘shoos’, spam words within longer words); etc.
The WP web pages I’ve checked haven’t been much help. Commenters have been great, so maybe a post asking for suggestions.
P.S. And a reminder for new commenters that WP sometimes disappears comments, so they should make a copy of a comment before submitting it.
November 9th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Hey Cole, know what this site really needs? Another reflexive Obot Front Pager.
Seriously lacking in that category.
November 9th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Browser sniffer that on detect of IE returns:
WTF CHUCK?! Ditch IE and get a browser we can support more easily.
November 9th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
@Corner Stone:
Geez, it’s too bad you got that device that feeds Balloon Juice directly into your brain and forces you to read it every day. Otherwise, you could stop reading it and go to other websites like a normal person.
November 9th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
@Mnemosyne: Back atcha.
November 9th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
@TooManyJens: akismet rocks! it catches everything on my blog.
also, tiny mce advanced is a good plugin that will solve a lot of the posting problems tom and i have been having, i think.
too, you should strike the ban on gays serving in balloon juice by stroking your pen.
November 9th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
@stuckinred: Love Pasta Punchinella (sp?) They have a really wonderful ravioli with apples and sausage and gruyere cheese that’s rich and delicious. Perfect in cold weather. We go there for lunch occasionally and almost every year for our small departmental holiday lunch. Enjoy.
November 9th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
@MikeJ:
That’s the one where the Universal PC Brain mulls the answer for countless millenia after the demise of its inventors… and the last line in the story is “Let There Be Light!”
It was done as an IMAX show some twenty years ago, when the technology was still new & cool. Narrated by Leonard Nimoy, IIRC, although I wouldn’t swear to that part.
November 9th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
List of front pagers. Also little things like the header gradient maybe not being 152k
http://balloon-juice.com/wp-co.....es/sky.gif (could easily be 5k)
And the logo taking you back to the home page rather than the little random tag line doing so.
November 9th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
@Comrade Luke: If they don’t add that, you can roll your own with Yahoo Pipes. I did that with Pandagon because I couldn’t put up with one of their posters.
November 9th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
still hatin the way comments are posted.
still hatin the fact that I can’t follow conversation.
still hatin that when i post something early in the day, it’s next to impossible to find any responses to my comment if there are any not that there are i mean who cares what i say noone but anyway i give up trying to find responses.
still hatin the fact that we really can’t engage in ebb and flow of conversation with this first come last serve style.
it’s so archaic and old school and 1998 like for a blog.
still lovin this blog very very very very much.
still lovin the fact that as each day goes by of me not reading DK?
and only reading BJ, TMP and Andrew?
i am that much happier. and feel better.
about everything.
so will put up with lousy commenting threads.
November 9th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
@TaMara (BHF):
I want bios of all the regular commenters as well. Maybe this could be an ongoing series of posts.
November 9th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
@BGinCHI:
This.
And how about a self-flagellation Droid app that screams obscenity-laced teatardisms at random intervals to remind me just how Gaia-damned screwed we all are once Comcast, the Koch Bros. Inc. and ExxonMobil run everything.
November 9th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
@TaMara (BHF):
But I like the stunned comment-expressions as people gradually figure out, hey, that’s not Cole! Always wanted to be a ninja, and this is as close as I’m ever liable to get…
November 9th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
@BruceFromOhio: I assumed your additions, on an individual level.
Booze is the gateway.
November 10th, 2010 at 12:46 am
It would be great if we could post pictures and gifs in the comment threads (see the SB Nation sports blogs – those have FANTASTIC technology for comment sections).
November 10th, 2010 at 1:20 am
@Christin:
Would it be so hard to press Ctrl-F (or whatever) in your browser and search for “Christin” down from your original comment?! I do that all the time, and it isn’t a ball-breaking effort.
Plus, as I said before, Balloon Juice is more of a group discussion than a convenient forum for one-on-one conversations. That’s just part of the adjustment you have to make if you’re going to roll here.
November 10th, 2010 at 1:56 am
Fix the fucking tags. The blog has so many good posts and the search results don’t ever come up with anything useful. If there is a better way to search this site then let us know.
November 10th, 2010 at 2:00 am
@Steeplejack:
You got it. This ain’t fucking Facebook. I read all of the comments before posting because, often, someone better informed than I am has already addressed my point. Sometimes I comment anyway because I feel that the stupid are under represented on this blog.
November 10th, 2010 at 4:33 am
Being stuck with dial-up, it’s really tough to edit or delete. Everything has to load before the buttons appear (change.org takes an especially long time). I can understand why seeing all the ads and stuff is necessary for the site, but when the edit box opens and everything else on the page is blacked out, is there really a purpose for going through this process? Is there any way this can be changed, or if not, can there be more time to make edits/deletions?
November 10th, 2010 at 9:41 am
Congrats. Especially because you’re shallow, self-absorbed, and lacking in identity.
November 10th, 2010 at 11:17 am
@roshan:
That reminds me that using the Google search box on the BJ website returns far fewer hits than using the same search terms (e.g., a commenter’s name) on the Google website.
@debbie:
I’m on dial-up, too. One way I speed up loading is to set the Internet Options (I keep a shortcut on my desktop) Security tab to disable “Run ActiveX controls”.
At the moment, this still allows commenting, however there will be no edit option. I realize the point of your comment was to ask for more time to edit, just saying that it appears to be that Active Xs slow loading, but I think at least one of them is for the edit function.
November 10th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Thanks, Platonicspoof, but as a Mac person, that wouldn’t help me. I do have java and javascript disabled so the page will load more quickly, but I still can’t get an edit or deletion in within the current time limit.
November 10th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
“Off the top of my head, some things that need to be fixed are adding emails for all the front page posters:”
Could you please make them actually supply email addresses, perhaps? As I’ve previously mentioned several times, all that happens when I click your links using Windows is that your Javascript insists it wants to open Outlook, which I don’t have installed. Neither do I use any other mail program, as I use web-based Yahoo, or in a pinch, web gmail.
Similarly, when I try your javascript on the Mac I’m using at the moment, it tells me it wants to set up a .mac account for me, and won’t otherwise work.
None of this apparently works for people who use web-based email. Or perhaps it does for someone not as stupid as me. In any case, as a datapoint, I’m at least that stupid, or unwilling to purchase PPP service and set up an entirely different way of dealing with email for the sole purpose of being able to use javascript to communicate solely with Balloon Juice front-pagers. That’s probably just me.
If Anne Laurie would ever care to drop me a note with her email address, that would be very shiny and wonderful.
I’ll be flying all day tomorrow, and offline until I’m set up again in Oakland, and won’t see any responses here until whenever, fwiw.
November 10th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Apologies that this request, or suggestion, is coming 5 days after the initial post, but I’d really like to see more than five Recent Comments listed in the sidebar.
This place is so traffic-heavy that the last five comments give little to no sense of which threads are active. I could see reasons why that’s desirable, actually; if people think a thread is dead, they don’t add to the chatter. But I suspect that interesting threads die too soon.
November 14th, 2010 at 4:23 pm